Wednesday, October 07, 2009

How to sew a cushion cover with an invisible zip - A Tutorial!!

Cushion covers with invisible zips - let me show you how!

It has been a very, very VERY long time since I've posted a tutorial on this here blog. Truth be told it's been a long time since I've learnt how to do any new and exciting things, until last weekend when Pete's mum showed me how she made cushions with invisible zips!

They look great, but the thing that excited me most was that it was EASY. Like 10 gazillion times less fuss and hassle than any other technique I've tried for sewing zips. So I decided to document the process and share it with you lovely folk. Now I must say that although Heather showed me how to do this, she originally learnt the technique from here, so huge kudos to the Sew? I Knit! Blog!

Step 1) Cut your fabrics to size. I'm making covers for a 45cm cushion so my pieces are 47cm x 47cm including a 1cm seam allowance. I also overlock the bottom edge of each piece where the zip is going to go.

Step 2) Prepare your invisible zip! Pictured below are the sort we buy. They're "heavy duty" ones, and you'll see that the bulky teeth side of the zip is the BACK rather than the FRONT like on normal zips. We use a 40cm zip for a 45cm cushion.

Now it makes the sewing process a LOT easier if you iron the zip out flat before you begin. Open the zip completely and see that you can kind of 'roll' the teeth outwards to expose some tiny stitches beneath. Iron the zipper with the teeth rolled outwards as shown below, and just go as close to the zipper head as you can. Use a low heat setting so as not to melt the teeth!

Step 3) Pin the zip in place. Open the zip right up and lay it along the bottom edge of your fabric. The RIGHT side of your zip should be facing down, with the RIGHT side of your fabric facing up. The zipper tape should be lined up with very edge of the fabric.

Also, you'll notice below that I've positioned the zip to one side, with the closed end starting right in the corner. I'll explain this later.

Step 4) Prepare your invisible zipper foot. Okay these are often very weird plasticcy contraptions, but they're not expensive and you can get them from most sewing places. There's generic ones that come with various attachments so you can fit them on any machine. YOU MUST USE AN INVISIBLE ZIPPER FOOT. Trying to sew an invisible zipper without one would be very tricky indeed.

Step 5) Sew your zip in place. You'll see that the invisible zipper foot has two grooves in it's base. Your folded out zipper teeth will fit in one of these grooves whilst the needle stitches very closely beside the teeth. You'll probably need to adjust the position of the foot or the needle to get a nice close stitch. Begin sewing where the zipper teeth start and stitch towards the zipper head. Keep the teeth folded out flat as you go.

Sew along the length of the zip, removing pins as you go, until you reach the zipper head. You'll probably get to about 1cm away from the zipper head before you have to stop. That's fine. Just do a locking stitch and raise the foot. You're done with that side!

Step 6) Sew the other side. Repeat steps 3-5 for the other side. Be careful to pin the correct side of your zip to the correct side of your fabric:

Sew along the length of the zip as you did before, this time with the teeth of the zipper in the OPPOSITE groove to the one you used before. Sew until you reach the zipper head and stop, do a locking stitch and raise the foot.

Step 7) Finish off the ends of your zip. If you close your zip completely (ooh it's so neatly concealed!) you'll see that the head and tail of the zip are still exposed. Like this:

And this:

But to close these ends off is quite simple. Lay your fabrics together again right sides facing. You'll see where your zip stitching ends - a few centimeters from each side of your cushion.

Attach a normal zipper foot to your machine with the needle to the right of the foot. Sew in from the side of your fabric and try and get as close as possible to your existing stitches. Hold the ziper tail out of the way so it doesn't get caught in your stitches.

Do the same at the other end. When working the open end of the zip, make sure that your fabric & stitches are lined up correctly, and move the zipper head along a bit so it's not in your way.Step 8) Admire your handiwork so far. Doesn't it look all neat and tidy? Wasn't that so much less painful than you expected? Also notice that your zipper ends up being more or less centered because of how we offset it's position in the first place.

Step 9) Finish it off! Finishing the cushion from this point is a simple affair. Simply lay the cushion front & back fabrics together right sides facing and stitch around the remaining three sides. Make sure you open the zip first before doing so! Then overlock the edges if desired.

Et voila! Here's the ones I just made for our home:

Cushion with Rooftops and Delft

New cushions hanging out on the couch. Featuring Delft, Rooftops & Birch prints.

71 comments:

Yay, perfect timing with the tutorial! Someone told me today on my blog that invisible zippers are easy and I shouldn't fear them and voila, your tutorial appeared in my reader! They've been a bugbear of mine for ages so perhaps this will push me to actually get an invisible zipper foot and try instead of avoiding the issue completely :)

Lara you take the best photos for tutorials! I never seem to take them at the right time and before I know it my project is complete and I have one photo of Step #1! You are a tute-sharing inspiration! xo

Brilliant, simple and fantastic. I'm about to make some cushions and now I think I'll try an invisible zip. I've never heard of an invisible zip foot either, I thought a zipper foot was specialised enough! Thanks :-)

great tutorial! you make it look easy. Good timing for me too, as I've been looking longingly at some of your fabrics for some cushion covers and was wondering how I'd manage to zip! Now I have the answer I'll just have to make sure the foot fits my very old Bernina.Thanks!

i'm joining the choir to say that the timing was perfect! i'm in the middle of ...eh, thinking about making some pillow covers, but it's good to know i can have a look here should i get a stupidity fit, which makes the part of actually beginning so much less taunting now. if only i can find those zippers... and the zip foot. surely i must have one?

Dear Del, If it is any help Spotlight carry the invisible zippers. I have used the ones for dresses for cushoins and they work fine. And i have an old bernina ( 35 years old and still working beautifully touch wood ) and I use the 452 foot (buttonhole foot ) for putting in invisible zips. Have made 2 wedding dresses and a deb dress and they looked fabulous.CheersLizzie

lizzie - thanks for the info on the zippers, had just been to spotlight looking for some and was unable to find anything heavier just as del said earlier. also a really limited number of colours in the right size so i was wondering where on earth to find the heavy duty ones...

spin spin, at spotlight i found a generic invisible zipper foot for my 30+ year old elna. takes an hour or so and practically a degree to put together with the instructions provided but it was about $7 and it works!

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Thanks so much, it’s been years since I tried to put in an invisible zipper. I’ve made quite a few pillow cases for gifts, just never put a zipper in one! This is for my grandniece’s kindergarten class nap time. God bless you!

Thank you for some brilliant insight into how to fix up a cushion with such little fuss. I didn't use an invisible zipper foot, and though it was a bit more fiddly it still worked fine. I am far more confident with sewing now, I had a lot of fun with this. :)